“The Five” on the Establishment and Me

Feb 22, 2012

RUSH: Folks, our buddies at “The Five,” those are the five people on the TV show called “The Five” — ’cause there are five people on the show on Fox at five in the afternoon — decided to discuss a point made by me, your host, yesterday on this program. We were talking about the whispers going on started by an unnamed Senator, if Romney loses Michigan, then all hell breaks loose. The devil is released, and everything falls apart on the Republican side. Utter panic sets in. Oh, my God, we can’t have this, and we gotta choose somebody else at the convention. And what I said was that the Republican establishment is just beside themselves, and they decided to talk about that on “The Five” yesterday. Eric Bolling and Dana Perino. We had Andrea “Tarantula.” We had Kimberly Guilfoyle and Beckel. And here’s the first of our sound bites to show you.

BOLLING: Our top story tonight, the Santorum surge. Is the Republican establishment afraid of a Rick Santorum candidacy? Rush Limbaugh says they just might be.

PERINO: The thing I would ask about, to Rush Limbaugh, would be — I could be wrong, I don’t think he’s endorsed anybody yet. He talks all about it. What Santorum or anybody needs to do and nobody has done yet is persuade us why we should be for them. We, meaning Republicans as a whole, because even though I know Rush has a good point about independents and how stop running for the independents, the establishment, whoever they are, however you define them, you actually do need them to vote for you.

RUSH: That was Dana Perino, and the independents. The establishment really cares more about the independent vote than they do the base at this point in time. May not have always been the case, but right now it is the case. They’re more worried about losing independents than they are securing the support of the conservative base, and Dana Perino was essentially agreeing with the establishment on this part that you do need ’em. The question is how do you get ’em? And this notion that you force them to run away from you by fighting back, that’s always been absurd to me. They try to tell us, “These independents, they don’t like confrontation. They don’t like all these arguments. They don’t like partisanship. These independents, they want people to get along. They want compromise. They want us to walk across the aisle.”

Okay, fine. So we back off, and we don’t hit hard. Meanwhile, Harry Reid’s out there saying the Republicans want to poison the water, and they want to poison the air, and they want to kill you. And that doesn’t bother the independents. The independents somehow stay loyal to Democrats when the Democrats never cross the aisle; when the Democrats never compromise; when the Democrats never cave, never give in, never do one thing to stop partisanship. The Democrats can be as mean-spirited and extremist as they want, and they never lose independents. But the Republicans, so goes the theory, always will. So it’s a trick to get us to shut up and not fight for our beliefs and not defend ourselves.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now back to “The Five” at five on Fox. Up next Eric Bolling describing — and you’ll hear Andrea “Tarantula” in here, too — Eric Bolling was describing that he listens to this show a lot.

BOLLING: I listen to a lot of Rush. And I think that’s where he’s coming from, it’s not so much he loves this candidate, he just doesn’t like the establishment Republican, right?

TARANTULA: Yeah. And he makes a good point. I mean the establishment is trying to jam a certain candidate down the throat of the base, but the base is regurgitating this candidate at every turn.

RUSH: She’s right, Andrea is dead right. The base is refusing to have a candidate they don’t like forced upon them. And what is the establishment reaction? “Okay, well, we’ll find somebody else then, if you don’t like this guy. We’ll go to the convention and we’ll pick up somebody else that’s not one of your people and see how you like that.” Kimberly Guilfoyle was next.

GUILFOYLE: This whole myth of inevitability, you know, it’s just not gonna hold true. The idea that Romney is the only one that can beat Barack Obama. Well, so far he’s got the best numbers on a head-to-head, but then how do you explain this kind of — everybody seems just thirsty, their desire, their thirst hasn’t been quenched. They’re looking at Santorum, Limbaugh saying maybe Newt’s gonna make a comeback.

RUSH: Oh, oh. And that one, too. The media jumped all over that comment when I said that if Santorum prevails in Michigan, don’t be shocked, ’cause there’s a debate tonight, there is a debate tonight and there hasn’t been one in awhile. Depending on how people do in the debate tonight, if Newt does well in the debate tonight and depending on what happens next week with Michigan, Newt could reignite. Not out of the realm of possibility. Finally Bob Beckel.

BECKEL: I’m sometimes not in agreement with Rush Limbaugh, but I gotta tell you, in this case he’s exactly right. The establishment of the Republican Party to be defined, I think, loosely as the Washington power structure Republicans, are scared to death of having Santorum and certainly Newt Gingrich, who they don’t want. I think Limbaugh’s right, they’re scared to death, but they’re not gonna jam somebody down their throat.

RUSH: Well, okay. Technically Andrea “Tarantula” was right, they are in the minds of the base, they are jamming somebody down their throat by virtue of this talk of going to the convention and picking somebody totally brand-new. Chris Christie’s out there saying — he’s saying a lot. Chris Christie’s out there, (paraphrasing) “Hey, Buffett, write a check, pal. Leave the rest of us alone. You want to pay more taxes, write a check.” Christie also says people are begging him to get back in the race, but he’s not gonna do it. He’s totally a Romney guy. Here’s an example of the Newt comment coming to life in the media. This morning on “Good Morning America” on ABC, John Berman, the correspondent.

BERMAN: Don’t forget Newt Gingrich. He’s been strong in past debates and some Republicans from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin are saying there could be another resurgence.

RUSH: I know these people. (laughing) Folks, I know how to do this. He-he-he-he. Some days it’s just too easy.